In recent years, computer systems have evolved into extremely sophisticated devices. The widespread dependance and the proliferation of computers have led to the development of computer networks. Computer networks allow individual PC's as well as large computer systems to communicate with one another independent of their locations. Network interfaces allow computer systems to send and receive data to and from any network the computer system may be connected to. The Internet is one form of a computer network that has become very popular recently, allowing different users and computers to establish communication with one another globally.
Generally, a user accesses the internet through a special software application known as the web browser. A web browser makes a connection through the Internet to other computers systems, sometimes known as the web servers, and receives information from the web servers that is then displayed on the individual user's work-station. Information displayed to the user is typically organized into pages that are constructed using a specialized language called Hypertext Markup language or HTML.
While it is relatively faster to retrieve and display information on individual work-stations, the task of printing or storing the retrieved information remains a challenge. Printing and downloading of retrieved information is often a very slow and painful process, wasting user's time and consuming system's bandwidth. The cumbersome organization of HTML documents is perhaps one of the key contributors to this problem.
Typically, HTML documents provide links to other documents in order to help the user obtain further information if necessary. When a user accesses a certain page of the document on the internet, the target page often provide "links" to other pages which are related in some respect to the target page and/or the subject matter of the target page. These "links" are often referred to as "hyperlinks" and the context in which they are presented is referred to as "hypertext". "Hyperlinks" are defined by a word or words, descriptive of the subject matter of the "linked" page and are usually highlighted in some manner to distinguish them over the rest of the text. Hyperlinks can appear in a bold, underscored fashion and/or even in a different color, to allow the user to easily locate them from an otherwise full page of text. A user can then utilize the keyboard or a pointing device such as a mouse, to activate the desired "hyperlink" by placing the cursor at or pointing the mouse to the desired area and activating the "link" by an entering or clicking action.
When searching a particular subject matter, often the first retrieved page only provides the most basic information in a broad manner but other links are provided to retrieve more detailed information. The next "link" level provides more specialized information about the selected topic with other "links" to provide even more detailed information. In this way each "link" level becomes more specialized and more detail oriented. It is not unusual to have to access several links before obtaining full amount of information necessary about a specific subject matter.
One example is a document that is made up of different sections. The original search retrieves the table of context, with each section provided as a link. In order for the user to download or print the entire document, each section has to be individually selected, downloading them individually one at a time in sequence and sometimes on a page-by-page basis, each time going through the printing protocol and having to return to the table of contents in order to accomplish the printing or downloading task. This can be a painful process, since each time a hyperlink is selected, the entire page will be retrieved including all of the graphics and text and graphics-related parameters specification that is necessary. The retrieval process may take a relatively long time because of the great amount of data and parameters that are needed to specify a color or sound output compared to a textual only display.
In a different situation, where the user wishes to print web pages from a plurality of network sites, the user has to wait until connection to different web sites are established one by one, before searching each time through a proliferation of "links" before initiating the print or store option. (When following a "hyperlink" trail, the user has to travel page-to-page and wait for the page to download from a web server before going through another print protocol.) Even after the print option is enacted, for each selected page, printing protocols has to be reenacted anew, making the process even slower. This disadvantage in retrieval, storage and printing is even more apparent during periods when there are many subscribers using the network at the same time.
As a consequence, a need for an improved methodology exists that can enable a more efficient search and print technique for printing network documentation while requiring a reduced amount of network usage time.